The Blame Game by Jared Carrabis
Thanks A Lot, Trot

And so the blame game begins. A game that was in the Red Sox hands and so close to being won has been torn from us and stolen by the Cleveland Indians. But who is to blame? Is it Francona for making the mistake of putting in Eric Gagne in a tie game situation? Or is it Eric Gagne’s fault for getting things going for Cleveland by putting two on with one out? The blame could always go to Javier Lopez for giving up three runs on two hits without managing to get a single out. The blame could even be on Curt Schilling for giving up a pivotal 3-run home run to Jhonny Peralta. You sure can’t put the blame on Jon Lester for giving up two more runs and putting the game even further out of reach, giving up runs just seemed like the thing to do at the time so you definitely can’t blame him.


This was just plain abysmal, there was no excuse for what happened Saturday night at Fenway Park. Personally, I don’t care whose fault it was. For all I care you can credit it as an all out bullpen meltdown. Officially Gagne is credited with the loss, and rightfully so but the fact that the remainder of the bullpen turned this game into a laugher is a disgrace. There is no reason why Fenway Park should only have a crowd of around 1,500 people sitting in the stands during an American League Championship game in the eleventh inning.


Call us true fans for staying until the last out of the last inning or call us idiots for thinking that the Red Sox were going to score eight runs in the bottom of the eleventh, it doesn’t matter. It never should have come to that. It never should have came to every fan in Fenway leaving with the same thought that they just wasted the last five hours and fourteen minutes of their life that they will never get back.


I wouldn’t exactly classify Game 2 as a “must win” but it sure would have been nice to have a 2-0 advantage heading into Cleveland for three straight. It would have been huge for the Red Sox if they could have beaten the Indians in a game where Fausto Carmona started. This game had all the makeup to be yet another legendary postseason game in Red Sox history. It was a game that featured a postseason hero in Curt Schilling to get the ball for the start.


That headline went right down the gutter when Curt Schilling turned in his second shortest postseason outing of his career. It was the second shortest behind Game 1 of the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, so this may give Sox fans hope that if history repeats itself that Schill’s best is yet to come. The Fenway crowd of 37,051 witnessed history when Manny Ramirez blasted a 2-run home run into the Red Sox bullpen to tie the game at five a piece. Manny’s dramatic home run was his 23rd of his postseason career passing Bernie Williams to become the all-time leader. Mike Lowell followed the historic home run with a solo blast of his own to give the Red Sox a 6-5 lead at the time.


Just by looking at the score you would think that Boston got blown out of the water, but you are mistaken. This game was very winnable for the Red Sox and they had many opportunities to come out of this game with a 2-0 series lead. The bottom of the ninth started with Rookie of the Year to be, Dustin Pedroia, ripping a single to left. Jacoby Ellsbury entered the game as a pinch-runner for Pedroia and without hesitation stole second to get into scoring position for Kevin Youkilis.


The Fenway Faithful were on their feet and hanging on all 11 pitches that were thrown to Kevin Youkilis during his entire at bat. The great at bat that Kevin put up was finally put to and end when he lined into center and it was tracked down by Grady Sizemore. The Red Sox best chance to win this game is when the “Due up:” read “David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell”. These chances were thrown out the window when the RBI machines went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the tenth, thus opening the bullpen gate for none other than Eric Gagne and it was all downhill from there.


Gagne allowed two base-runners before giving way to Javier Lopez. As soon as our old friend Trot Nixon approached the batters box, everyone knew that you could not have scripted this any better. There was nothing stopping Trot Nixon from knocking in a run to give the Indians the lead. Little did we know that six more runs would follow, but everyone had to have had a feeling that Trot was going to bury the Sox in that situation.


All we can do now is just shake it off and have the closer’s mentality of forgetting about the night before and going into Game 3 with a clean mind and be ready to win. There’s nothing we can do about Game 2, arguing over whose fault it was or complaining about losing in general isn’t going to change the fact that we lost. Trot, you did what you had to do, we forgive you…sort of.


Game 3 of this best of seven series features Daisuke Matsuzaka’s second career postseason start. Daisuke didn’t exactly shine in his first postseason start during Game 2 of the ALDS, but he gave the Red Sox a chance to win and in October, that’s all you have to do. Opposing Matsuzaka is Jake Westbrook who is also making his second career postseason start. Sox fans will light up when they see his 6-9 record and his 4.32 ERA and hopefully the Red Sox bats will light up as well. Westbrook struggled in his first postseason start against the Yankees by going five innings and yielding six earned runs on nine hits including a home run. The Red Sox will be looking to continue Jake Westbrook’s postseason struggles as they attempt to regain the lead in the 2007 American League Championship Series.


ALCS Game 2: Indians 13, Red Sox 6

Published on October 13, 2007

---